The Big Green Umbrella

If ever one needed an umbrella, it was Monday.  Rain ALL day long.  Madeleine loves the rain and I love it too, but only for a day or so, then I start to miss the sun.  But Monday was a perfect rainy day- just a steady stream that dripped from our gutters and tiptoed across the roof.  Inside the house it was dark so we had to switch on lamps and since our furniture is old (and mostly flea market/trash-picked) the damp weather always bring out a slightly musty smell (which I actually don't mind so much). 

 

The Big Green Umbrella

Elizabeth Coatsworth

pictures by Helen Sewell 1944

Charlotte wasn't into this book as much as I was.  I loved the story.  The Thomas family lives in Delaware in the 1800s and are known by their big green umbrella.  It can keep their whole family dry on rainy days as they walk to church or along the River.  "But one day the umbrella seemed to grow tired of its life in Newcastle," and it decided to fly away on the wind.

Goodness knows what thoughts the umbrella had been thinking during all the long hours behind the door!  But when the moment came, the umbrella acted!

It ends up aboard a clipper ship bound for China.  And then it passes into the hands of Peach Blossom, a Chinese merchant's daughter.  The story ends with the umbrella eventually being returned to the surprised Thomas family.

The Rainbabies

We really haven't gotten our share of April showers this year, but the flowers are blooming nonetheless.  We've always loved the story in this book.  It's interesting that a common devise in fairy/folk tales is a childless couple longing for a child of their own.  Here there's a good dose of magic, love, nature and a bittersweet but happy ending.

The Rainbabies

Laura Krauss Melmed

illustrated by Jim LaMarche 2004

Jim LaMarche's pictures are every bit as warm and sweet as the story. 

A Rainbow of My Own

A Rainbow of My Own

Don Freeman

It's the season of rain showers, spring storms and wet days. This book is a burst of color.

A little boy dons his yellow raincoat and goes in search of a rainbow. He imagines what it would be like to play with the stream of colors but he's in for a sunny surprise when he gets home.

Rain rain rain

Those who live around here will know what I mean.

Rain Makes Applesauce

Rain Makes Applesauce

by Julian Scheer and Marvin Bileck 1964

We've had plenty of rain these days.  All the better for our gardens and grass!  And it was time to pull out this book to read over and over.  I love the whimsical pictures- you could sit and look at them for hours.  The text is silly, nonsensical fun.  Sometimes that's just what kids like to listen to best.  Things like:

Dolls go dancing on  the moon and rain makes applesauce
The wind blows backwards all night long and rain makes applesauce
Candy tastes like soap soap soap and rain makes applesauce
Monkeys eat the chimney smoke and rain makes applesauce

I wish our copy didn't smell so musty, but maybe that adds to the charm!

The Umbrella Brigade

All this Spring rain sure is making the flowers grow!  And the puddles!  oh, the puddles are a sight to stir one's blood!  Charlotte loves to be out in it with her green boots and her umbrella.

Thunder

Call the cows home!
Call the cows home!
Louring storm clouds
Hitherward come;
East to West
Their wings are spread;
Lost in the blue
Is each heaven-high head;
They've dimmed the sun;
Turned day to night;
With a whistling wind
The woods are white;
Down streams the rain
On farm, barn, byre,
Bright green hill,
And bramble and brier,
Filling the valley
With glimmer and gloom:
Call the cows home!
Call the cows home!
               -Walter de la Mare

Thunderstorms and hail today.  I think everyone should have a big book of Walter de la Mare's poems.

The Storm Book

We were chased off the beach yesterday by thunder and lightning. We managed to get back to the house just before the rain hit. The kids and I watched the storm from the windows for a little bit and then sat down to play a game of RISK. Later in the afternoon after we had driven home, another storm swelled up. The rain poured down and the thunder rumbled and we even lost power for a few minutes. When it was over Madeleine spotted a rainbow outside the front window.

The Storm Book

Charlotte Zolotow 1952

pictures by Margaret Bloy Graham

A really beautiful description of a summer storm falling on the country, and the city and a fisherman at sea. Told in descriptive prose and double page illustrations.  We read it in our living room when the power was out and we could see lightening through the window.
 

A little cool wind suddenly races through the trees, sways the rambler roses, bends the daisies and buttercups and Queen Anne's lace and the long grass until they make a great silver sighing stretch down the hill.

Then it happens!  Shooting through the sky like a streak of starlight comes a flash so beautiful, so fast, that the little boy barely has time to see the flowers straining into the storm wind.

The sky darkens again as the thunder draws closer, rolling loudly nearer, until, with a sudden explosion, it crashes overhead and a silver torrent of rain slants down. The daisies bend almost to the ground under the tearing weight of the wind and the rain sweeping over the rambler roses and trees, as they toss in the cool huge arms of the storm.

The tops of the tall buildings look cut off by the storm darkness, and the little city trees strain at their roots in their loop-fenced circles, and the wind whips the leaves from their branches.  The automobile tires make a swish-swishing sound as they pass.

The rain drives against the windows of the little boy's house.  It beats a loud tattooing pitpatpitpatting on the roof, and the wind rising and falling in the trees sounds like the sea breaking against the shore.

A queer yellow light spreads over the earth now, so faint, so fine, so beautiful that the little boy lets out his breath with a soft whistling sound.  And suddenly all the birds break into song.  The glistening wet trees are loud with sharp quick twitterings and long full-noted calls.

Rain

Peter Spier's Rain (Reading Rainbow Book)

Peter Spier 1997

Peter Spier has illustrated some wonderful books. Rain relies on his detailed illustrations to tell the story and they never fall short. We follow a brother and sister as their mother hands them an umbrella and lets them out to explore in the rain. In typical child fashion they play under the rain spout, watch the water rush down the gutter, see ducks and geese in the pond and splash in puddles. Then it’s home for a steaming bath, some hot dinner and finally bedtime where outside their windows the rain is still coming down. I don’t know how he does it, but just by looking at the pictures you can almost hear and feel and smell all that the children experience.

Water Dance

We had a terrific downpour today as we left for Madeleine’s piano lesson. It was the kind of tumble down, pell mell rain that blurs the windows and muffles voices. We have been known to run to the tree-house during such storms, taking books and blankets and a lantern with us.

Water Dance

Thomas Locker 1997

Some people say that I am one thing.
Others say that I am many.
Ever since the world began
I have been moving in an endless circle.
Sometimes I fall from the sky.

Water Dance follows the cycle of water from rain, to river to sea to clouds. Soft paintings carry the reader along with simple, lyrical text. Scientific information at the end gives a more educational view of the water cycle.
 

At the foot of the mountains,

I leap from a stone cliff.

Spriraling.
Plunging.

I am the waterfall.

Drawn upward

by warm sunlight,

in white-silver veils,

I rise into the air.

I disappear.

I am the mist.

I blind the sky with lightning.

The earth trembles with my thunder.

I rage.

I drench the mountainside.

I am the storm.

I am one thing.

I am many things.

I am water.

This is my dance through our world.